Hemmerle is a fourth generation family run jeweller at the vanguard of contemporary design. Founded in 1893, each jewel conceived is handcrafted and layered with cultural references; they are as original as a work of art with a design aesthetic of powerfully audacious modernity. Today, Christian Hemmerle runs the business with his wife Yasmin and parents Stefan and Sylveli Hemmerle.
Copper, stainless steel and unusual varieties of wood create a dramatic back drop for rare stones like strikingly coloured tourmaline as well as found materials including 18th century cameos and Egyptian miniature mosaics. This juxtaposition gives Hemmerle jewellery a vivacity that lends it a different edge.
The Hemmerle family travel across the world treasure hunting for rare materials including impeccably cut brown-diamonds from the Mughal-era, sun-orange melo pearls from the South China Sea, ancient carved forest-green jade and intense blue aquamarines from Brazil. Christian Hemmerle explains, “We find the perfect stone and then create a distinctive design especially for it. The design then becomes a reality in our Munich atelier. We are always experimenting with new materials to find the perfect combinations for a stone; in a recent pairs of earrings we used concrete and aluminium.”
Hemmerle Key Collections
Nature’s Jewels
Delicious Jewels
Hemmerle’s ‘Harmony’ Bangle at the Victoria and Albert Musuem
Hemmerle’s Nature’s Jewels collection consisting of twelve brooches, two pairs of earrings, a necklace and a ring was inspired by fruits, seeds, leaves and trees. The realism and innovative use of materials in thecollection captures woodland tones alongside the textures of vibrant exotic fruits.The collection was celebrated with the publication of a poetry book, Nature’s Jewels. Produced in a limited edition, this unique selection of jewels and poems is published by the art-book publisher MACK with poems sourced by the poet Greta Bellamacina. Poems in eight different languages feature in the book, transcribed in calligraphy in their original language and in English.Writing by Alice Oswald, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Octavio Paz, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Arthur Rimbaud all feature in the book alongside other celebrated poets.
To celebrate a new chapter in Hemmerle’s history, Christian and Yasmin Hemmerle surprised Stefan Hemmerle with a vegetable-inspired collection and published Delicious Jewels in 2011, a book that introduces the jewels along with recipes by celebrated food writer and author Tamasin Day-Lewis. The concept of the recipe taps into the alchemical mix of ingredients – imagination and intuition, originality, creativity, audacity and technical virtuosity – that go to make a Hemmerle jewel. The vegetal theme shows Hemmerle’s affinity with figurative as well as abstract compositions, and their respect for the natural treasures of the planet. The collection highlights nature’s artistry, both vegetal and mineral, turning the mundane into the magnificent.
Hemmerle Harmony Bangle in the permanent jewellery collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In October 2010 Hemmerle had its contribution to jewellery history recognised internationally when its Harmony Bangle joined the permanent collection of the William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. The Harmony Bangle entered the V&A collection 99 years after Prince Arthur of Connaught brought back from Munich for King George V the Hemmerle made diamond-set Bavarian Order of St Hubert which remains in the Royal Collection today. The bangle, a consummate example of Hemmerle design, is crafted in red patinated copper and white gold, with cherry-red pavé spinels capping the ends. The prototype of Hemmerle’s exquisitely curvaceous and sought-after bangle was originally created from gold and platinum in the late 1980’s. Gradually, as its dimensions were refined, its name was derived to signify its magnificent flawless proportions. Distinctively capped with glistening pavé-set stones, the base of the Harmony Bangle has been shaped from an array of tropical wood as well as patinated copper, pure gold and platinum. A masterly aspect of the Harmony Bangle – its intricately engineered seamless closure – is almost completely undetectable.